Tag Archives: SFS

Meet a Resident Director: Heidi

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The Turks and Caicos islands are located south of the Bahamas in the North Atlantic Ocean. On these islands, Heidi Hertler is a Resident Director with the School for Field Studies (SFS). After spending nearly 20 years in the Caribbean, her passion for the ocean, science and students has flourished. In this entry, we get a sneak peak into studying abroad and living in paradise.

SFS-Heidi-Hertler-ocean
What brought you to be a Center Director?
I am a School for Field Studies (SFS) alumna. As an undergraduate, this program changed my life and has since greatly influenced all my career choices. I have made the Caribbean my home for nearly 20 years. In this time, I have lived by the SFS philosophy – teach environmental problem solving by working on real problems defined by the communities where you are located. Four years ago, I accepted the position of Center Director at the SFS Center for Marine Resource Studies in the Turks and Caicos Islands. As Center Director, I strive to provide students with a clear understanding of the value and management of environmental resources in a local context. I am extremely excited to live and work in the TCI and in an environment where I can have such an effect on the local community and future scientists.

What are some unique aspects of your city and country?
There are over 40 islands and cays that make up the Turks and Caicos Islands and each has many unique aspects – small fishing communities (South Caicos), large cruise ship terminal (Grant Turk), high end development (Providenciales). The SFS Center for Marine Resources is located on South Caicos. South Caicos is a beautiful island rich in natural resources (fishing capital of TCI) and local history (salt industry) with relatively little development (one small hotel). The climate is dry and almost desert like. At the Center’s door step are shallow and deep reefs, extensive seagrass meadows, mangrove forests, and white sand beaches. The local community is a confluence of many different cultures – TCI Islanders, Haitians, Dominicans, and West Indians – this diversity is a great opportunity to learn about Caribbean life.

What is one thing most of your students may not know about you?
We all live and work together – research, site clean-up, kitchen crew, card games, outreach, sunset viewing. By the end of the semester, there is not much they don’t know about me or any of our staff.

What are some of your favorite aspects of being a Center Director?
Working side by side with students and community members to collect data that will directly impact local decisions and environmental policies.

What are some of the challenges of your job?
Every day there is a new challenge, where do I start…Managing logistics of a large center on a small, remote island would be the “challenge of the week”.

What have you seen as the biggest challenge for incoming students?
South Caicos is a physically demanding environment. The amenities (fresh water, shopping, food varietySFS-Heidi-Hertler-diving, etc.) are limited relative to a student’s home environment. On top of that, our program is 6 days a week. Most adapt and leave with a great sense of connection to the island. Many of our students apply to return as Interns at our Center or another SFS program.

What is your advice for students planning to attend your program, or to study abroad in your country?
Embrace the experience. Take every opportunity to explore the country and meet with the people. Disconnect from the internet – learn to play dominoes. Stop and watch the sunset. Take a swim in the ocean every day. Always remember we are all guests in the country.

What is one thing you think students shouldn’t forget to pack for life in your country?
1. Mask, fins and snorkel – you will use them more often than anything else. 2. Sunscreen and bug spray– second in use to mask, fins and snorkel. 3. A desire to be in the field learning.

What do you think is the most important take-away for education abroad students?
You are living in a community that is different then you are accustomed to – things are better and worse. Study abroad challenges any preconceived ideas that you might have.

To find out more about attending Heidi’s program, follow this link!

Meet a Resident Director: Amanda

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Amanda Freeman is a director with The School for Field Studies (SFS). She works in the Centre for Rainforest Studies, which covers 153 acres in the northern part of Queensland, Australia. Every day, she is surrounded by wildlife, nature and amazing students!

Amanda FreemanFeb2013
What brought you to be a Resident Director?
I had been an SFS faculty at this centre for several years when the Resident Director position became vacant. I was keen to take on a different role in the organization; one with more opportunity to facilitate SFS involvement in the local community and to play a greater part in research planning.

What are some unique aspects of your city and country?
Well, it’s certainly not the city. We live and work in a beautiful rural area surrounded by tropical rainforest. We’re also lucky to live in a very vibrant and friendly community. Of course our wildlife is unique – where else can you see platypus and tree-kangaroos for instance?

What is one thing most of your students may not know about you?
I once got lost on my own study site – so when I am drilling home those safety messages I am talking from experience!

What are some of your favorite aspects of being a Resident Director?
Every programme I get to meet another group of enthusiastic young people who are experiencing our environment through fresh eyes.  It makes it seem fresh, new and exciting for me too.  I also love working to find more ways that our staff and students and the local community can work together and help to make more opportunities for our students to be actively involved. On a day to day basis the work of a RD is also very varied; I’m certainly never bored!

What are some of the challenges of your job?
It is sometimes challenging to work with different nationalities and different generations.  On the other hand, that is also one of the most satisfying and interesting parts of the job.  Of course, being on the other side of the world in a different time zone I can’t just pop down to a HQ colleague’s office for a quick chat so communication is sometimes a challenge. Weather is sometimes challenging but we work around it.

What have you seen as the biggest challenge for incoming students?
A few students struggle to let go of home for a while. It is challenging for students to be fully involved in their time here while still trying to keep up with all their friends and family back home.

What is your advice for students planning to attend your program, or to study abroad in your country?
Like most things in life, you reap what you sow. Get involved, make the most of every moment – you may not come this way again.

What is one thing you think students shouldn’t forget to pack for life in your country?
Their sense of humour.

What do you think is the most important take-away for education abroad students?
Be open to new experiences and different points of view.  Everyone has their story.

To find out more about Amanda’s program, follow this link!

Meet a Resident Director: Gerardo

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Gerardo Avalos lives in Costa Rica and works with The School for Field Studies (SFS) helping to spark student’s interests in ecology and sustainability. Atenas, Costa Rica, where Gerardo’s program is stationed, is small, yet beautiful. Gerardo invites OSU students out of their comfort zone, and into Costa Rica.

gerardo-avalos
What brought you to be a Resident Director?
I served as a Tropical Ecology Faculty for 6 years before moving into the Resident Director position. By training, I am a plant physiological ecologist with interests on multivariate statistics. Being a scientist is different from being an administrator, but I wanted to develop the SFS Center in Costa Rica in new directions. In addition to consolidating our academic program, I wanted the center to be a model farm and an effective research institution to generate information about the management and conservation of natural resources for our clients in Costa Rica (national parks, protected areas, and local communities) so that our students could get not only an authentic educational and research experience, but leave behind a positive footprint on the country.

What are some unique aspects of your city and country?
The center is located in the town of Atenas, just 40 min away from the airport and the capital city of San Jose, and about 1 hour away from the nearest national parks (Poás Volcano in the Central Mountain Slope and Carara along the Pacific coast). Atenas has only 20,000 inhabitants, but despite of being small, it has all the basic services. It maintains a very traditional Costa Rican community, with coffee farms covering 40% of the area. Here, students can see a representative part of Costa Rican rural communities, traditional coffee production, and the celebration of local holidays like Independence Day and the ox cart parade. Atenas also has a very diverse international community. This area of Costa Rica presents some of the most pressing problems of the country as a whole, such as water production and conservation, urban expansion, waste management, and conflicts between these issues and biodiversity conservation. Costa Rica has maintained a leading tradition of democracy and political stability in Latin-America as well as of biodiversity protection. It is also one of the most biodiverse countries in the Neotropics with about 5% of the estimated number of species concentrated here. In terms of running a program like ours, these conditions have many advantages. Field trips could span strikingly different ecosystems in one day. Students can compare and contrast different agricultural models and different community profiles superimposed on different ecological conditions. This is an ideal country to study environmental issues and analyze the balance between biodiversity conservation with economic growth.

What is one thing most of your students may not know about you?
I spent one year at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Costa Rica studying history of art before switching to biology. I have an artistic side, and still do a bit of pastel and water color painting. I can also do cartoons, and have illustrated a children´s book. I did a bit of scientific drawing as an undergraduate student at the Biology Department at the University of Costa Rica.

What are some of your favorite aspects of being a Resident Director?
Observing the transformation of our students when they first come to the center and seeing how much they change and have learned from the program before they leave is very rewarding. Students could move on to graduate school, or to jobs that employ an environmental component, so you can see that the program has had a critical impact on them.

What are some of the challenges of your job?
This is mostly a balancing act. This goes across the board in terms of making sure the program works in all aspects. We plan our semester way ahead of time, looking at lecture schedules, community outreaches, field trips, and our week-long trip in Nicaragua. A program this complex is not an easy feat to accomplish. It requires experience and team work. Keeping a good team is critical for the program, the consistency of the educational quality we provide, and the professional development not only of our faculty, but of all our staff members. We are talking about a staff of 17 people, 9 of which function to support the program in terms of maintenance, cleaning, and cooking. It takes a long time and effort to form a good team.

What have you seen as the biggest challenge for incoming students?
This is a residential and very structured program. Students need to adjust to community living. They compromise to change certain behaviors for the benefit of the internal community, and abide by the sustainability contract (which a previous group of students proposed a few years back). Implementing down-to-earth changes (improving recycling, water, and electricity use, for instance) could be hard, representing a compromise and a more conscious awareness on the consequences of our actions on the capacity of our planet to provide services. Being less resource-demanding does not mean a decrease in our quality of life. Being closer to nature has multiple benefits that improve your perspective on life. Unplugging from the internet and decreasing the use of your gadgets and social networks is also an important challenge for many students.

What is your advice for students planning to attend your program, or to study abroad in your country?
Be open to new experiences; do not have preconceived expectations because every session is different and unique. What you positively learn from this will affect your life in the long-term.

What is one thing you think students shouldn’t forget to pack for life in your country?
A good pair of binoculars and a digital camera.

What do you think is the most important take-away for education abroad students?
Humankind is very consistent across the board. We have an amazing capacity for ecological and cultural adaptation. However, we also have a puzzling aptitude to repeat the same mistakes. Learning that deep inside, across cultural borders, we are all the same, and have invented ingenious ways to adjust to challenging ecological conditions (hopefully without repeating the same mistakes) is the key to a more sustainable future. Respecting and appreciating the diversity of ways to relate to nature is something you cannot learn from textbooks. You need to step outside your comfort zone and see the world.

To find out more about Gerardo’s program, follow this link!